Part of The Far Side fan club here and I would have put it at #1, although the only knock I have on it was that ti spawned numerous imitators that were far inferior. There was one that started running in our paper after Gary Larson hung 'em up that was just awful - Close to Home. It didn't help that my dad liked it better, since he never "got" The Far Side but thought this one was hilarious. John McPherson is functionally retarded and a pathetic copycat.

So "Liberty Meadows" is just one of those "hot chick and bunch of funky dudes or animals or whatever" webcomics that somehow ended up with a syndication deal at the intersection of print's decline and digital inking's rise?

poot_rootbeer:So "Liberty Meadows" is just one of those "hot chick and bunch of funky dudes or animals or whatever" webcomics that somehow ended up with a syndication deal at the intersection of print's decline and digital inking's rise?

They actually replaced Dick Lochner (who wrote and drew the strip) with Joe Staton (artist) and Mike Curtis (writer; he actually used to be a cop).

I started reading Tracy late in Lochner's run, but grew bored because he would take two or three weeks just to show one scene of action. Staton and Curtis's run is so much better (better characters and faster pacing) that it's become one of my favorite comic strips.

Little Nemo should be on the list. High on the list.Peanuts should be higher.I love Liberty Meadows, but I don't think it had the distribution, the influence, or the longevity of the rest of the list, so I was surprised at its inclusion.Maybe one of the serialized strips other than Doonesbury where the characters age. I'm thinking Funky Winkerbean or For Better or For Worse.

If the author only ever read this I could forgive him for putting the suck that is Garfield Amalgamated Humor Industries and Clip-Art Supplies on the list, otherwise there are hundreds of comics more worthy than that drivel.

I thought the best newspaper comic strips were long gone, and I've never been happier to be wrong. Richard Thompson's Cul de Sac has it all--intelligence, gentle humor, a delightful way with words, and, most surprising of all, wonderful, wonderful drawings.

Cul de Sac's whimsical take on the world and playful sense of language somehow gets funnier the more times you read it. Four-year-old Alice and her Blisshaven Preschool classmates will ring true to any parent. Doing projects in a cloud of glue and glitter, the little kids manage to reinterpret an otherwise incomprehensible world via their meandering, nonstop chatter. But I think my favorite character is Alice's older brother, Petey. A haunted, controlling milquetoast, he's surely one of the most neurotic kids to appear in comics. These children and their struggles are presented affectionately, and one of the things I like best about Cul de Sac is its natural warmth. Cul de Sac avoids both mawkishness and cynicism and instead finds genuine charm in its loopy appreciation of small events. Very few strips can hit this subtle note.

I also like the nightmarish suburb that the Otterloop ("outer loop") family inhabits: the identical houses crammed in endless rows, the relentless highway traffic strangling the soulless development, the ugly shopping malls, the oppressive parking garages, and sticky-floored restaurants. Like most of us, the family negotiates this modern awfulness as a simple matter of course; the critique appears only in the drawings, where the strip suddenly works on another level.

And oh, those gorgeous drawings! With a mix of rambling looseness, blotchy crudeness, and sheer cartoony grace, Thompson's expressive pen line is the equal of any of cartooning's Old Masters. Thompson has a very sharp eye and a command of technique we almost never see anymore. He reminds us that comics can be more than illustrated gag writing, and that good drawings can bring a comic strip's world to life in countless ways that words cannot. The artwork in Cul de Sac bowls me over. It's a pleasure to study long after the strips are read.The first fifty pages of this book are taken from the earlier incarnation of Cul de Sac that appeared in the Washington Post Magazine. Here we discover that Thompson has a natural flair for watercolor painting too. At this point, however, I'm not even surprised.

I hope you enjoy Cul de Sac as much as I do. I think you're in for a real treat.

-Bill Watterson, 2008

I piece Watterson did to raise money for Thompson who suffer from Parkinson's Disease.

While I've laughed more at Far Side, I do think that the #1 spot is deserving Calvin and Hobbes.

One of the things that strip did was turn comics into a bigger, better form of art. Comics are, by design, crafted so that they can be split in half or in thirds... look at a normal sunday strip: it's in a 1/3, 1/6, 1/6, 1/3 design. Watterson changed this, and changed it by himself, to allow full use of the space in the most common format. Many papers relented to allow something different in an age-old design. It was only due to the incredible popularity of Calvin & Hobbes that allowed this.

GeneralJim: Gunny Highway: Does Cul De Sac not run in anyone's newspaper? I feel like I am farking insane.

I've never seen it in any paper.

Thanks for the examples -- now I know Why

Ouch

Sorry. No personal offense intended. It just looks like the "before" part of an ad for the Famous Cartoonists School. I was going to go with "Cul De Suck," but I don't HATE it, it just doesn't do anything for me. But, that's why they call it "personal taste."

GeneralJim:Gunny Highway: GeneralJim: Gunny Highway: Does Cul De Sac not run in anyone's newspaper? I feel like I am farking insane.I've never seen it in any paper.

Thanks for the examples -- now I know Why

OuchSorry. No personal offense intended. It just looks like the "before" part of an ad for the Famous Cartoonists School. I was going to go with "Cul De Suck," but I don't HATE it, it just doesn't do anything for me. But, that's why they call it "personal taste."